A Quadruple-Node Upsets Hardened Latch Design Based on Cross-Coupled Elements

Abstract

With the continuous scaling of CMOS technology, single-event multi-node upsets (MNU) induced by charge sharing has continued to occur in latches when hit by high-energy particles. This paper presents a quadruple-node upset (QNU) tolerant latch design (referred to as P-DICE latch) to achieve both high reliability and low area overhead. The P-DICE latch takes advantage of the error-blocking properties of Cross-Coupled Element and C Element to tolerate QNU, and achieves 100% self-recovery of SNU and DNU. Compared with previous eight MNU hardened latches, the P-DICE latch has the lowest overhead in terms of area, area-power-delay product (APDP), and area-power-delay soft error rate ratio product (APDSP), and has the highest critical charge. Moreover, the proposed P-DICE latch can tolerate QNU caused by high-energy particles to ensure the reliability of the circuit. Compared with eight MNU hardened latches, the proposed P-DICE latch achieves 24.58% reduction in area, 33.05% reduction in power, 17.19% reduction in delay, 48.29% reduction in area-power-delay product, 61.60% reduction in APDSP, and 142.82% improvement in critical charge on average.